Vivid, Colorful, Crazy, Chaotic
by Mac-alicious
Summary: Lucas learns to trace Maya's moods by how and what she's painting.  But sometimes he can't figure out what she's feeling with one look. Today is one of those days. / / Futurefic, oneshot.


**A/N:** I know this isn't another chapter of _Someday You Will Be Loved_ , but this has been sitting around waiting to be posted for awhile so, this first. The next chap of _Someday_ will be up in a couple days, promise. This is another college age (AU ish, maybe) future fic. It was also written pre- _Texas_ , so it assumes that at no point do Lucas and Maya actually date prior to this. Also there's a OC, but she's basically just there to provide a couple lines of observations from someone who hasn't been around our characters since middle school. I suppose that's about it. Enjoy! R&R! Thanks! ~Mac

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own GMW.

 **Vivid, Colorful, Crazy, Chaotic**

" _I see life as increasingly complex, vivid, colorful, crazy, chaotic."_

 _-Julie Glass_

" _Painting is just another way of keeping a diary."_

 _-Pablo Picasso_

 _._

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Lucas wakes up to the sound of voices overhead. He's too groggy at first to make out what is being said, so it's really a feeling he gets that they're talking about him. Something about the tone and proximity is the contributing factor in that conclusion. So, he keeps his eyes closed and listens in until he can be sure.

"Look, I know he's you guys' friend and all, but why is he always here? You said he has his own place, but," Emily shakes her head as she addresses her two roommates, "No one spends this much time on someone else's couch unless they're homeless."

Riley sips on her mug of tea and let's Maya take this one.

Maya snickers and pushes her mess of blonde curls back out of her face. She's perched on the arm of the couch, right above where his head rests, and she has to stop herself from reaching down to ruffle his hair. "Huckleberry has issues with his roommate."

Lucas opens his eyes and replies in a voice still low and raspy from sleep, "I don't have issues with my roommate. I have issues with my roommate's tendency to have sex with his girlfriend when I'm trying to sleep five feet away." He rolls his shoulders and stretches slightly to work out some of the kinks in muscles from spending the night flat on his back on an old couch with only a thin blanket tossed haphazardly over his lower half. "It's a dorm. They're small. There are no doors. _NO DOORS_."

"Come on, Ranger Rick, tell us all about it again," Maya's laughter grows until it bubbles up so much that she nearly doubles over with it. "Are they loud? Do they get _weird_? Do they call each other strange things?"

"Oh, stop it, Maya," Riley rolls her eyes.

"It's okay, Riley," Lucas replies. "They don't call each other anything stranger than the things Maya calls me."

"Yeah, but I don't call you those things to rile you up _that_ way," Maya says and reaches over to poke him in the shoulder.

Lucas waggles his eyebrows at her. "Maybe you do anyway."

Maya's mouth falls open, and it's not so often that he catches her off guard, so he uses it to his advantage. In one quick motion, he sits up and grabs her still outstretched poking hand, tugging her down on to the couch beside him. She falls into his side with a squeak and he wraps an arm around her shoulders to keep her in place. She's stuck, tucked in between the arm of the couch and Lucas's warm body, but it's cozy, comfortable there. She doesn't fight it.

"These two..." Emily mumbles incoherently under her breath as she walks away. Just before she's through the door to her room, she calls out, "If he stays here any longer, he might as well start paying rent."

Then she's gone with only the sound of her door clicking shut behind her.

Maya is laughing again. "You are here an awful lot, more than Riley even."

"Maybe I just like waking up to your lovely face each morning," Lucas says.

"Ha, yeah, I'm sure you _love_ waking up to someone demanding to see your proof of residence and commenting on your lack of shopping cart full of recyclables," Maya counters.

"Well, I've got class," Riley says, glancing at the time on her phone screen. "Are you gonna—you don't care, you don't hear me at all. Yeah, that's cool. I can tell when I'm unnecessary to a scene. I'll see you later."

Riley deposits her empty mug in the sink, grabs her backpack, and then she's gone, with only the sound of the front door clicking shut behind her—none of which disrupts the banter happening between Maya and Lucas.

"I prefer that wake up call to creaky springs and sounds that should not be heard outside of an adult film," Lucas replies. "Besides, waking up to three girls staring at me has to be in my all time top ten fantasies."

Unsure how to respond to that, Maya settles for crinkling her nose up at him. "You need a mint."

"I cold use some freshening up," Lucas grumbles as he pulls his arm back and stands up. He catches the blanket as it falls away from him and tosses it over Maya. "Do you still have that extra toothbrush?"

Maya struggles to pull the blanket down from her face in order to answer him. She finally twists herself free after a moment. "It's in the medicine cabinet, bottom shelf."

"I'll be right back," Lucas says and heads for the bathroom.

Lucas savors the use of a private bathroom. Sure, it is shared by all the girls that live in this apartment, but at least he doesn't have to squabble for space with his suite mates. It also has a door with a _lock_. For five to ten minutes, he has it to himself. He brushes his teeth with the toothbrush Maya bought when he started staying over. She says it was meant to be a spare, to keep around when she wore hers out, but he knows it was for him. It's his favorite color and everything. He'll never call her on it though. Once his breath is minty fresh, he washes his face to wake up his senses and to stave off the uncomfortable feeling attached to the reminder that his last shower was a quick affair twenty four hours prior. He has a travel sized deodorant stashed in one of their drawers too and he digs it out now. He might talk Maya into letting him shower before he goes to his one evening class. She has at least a drawer full of his clothes, that she's claimed for herself over the years, that he can find something to wear in. He's borrowed his clothes before, when he's stayed over in the past and cut it too close to stop at his dorm before class, but Maya always seems to get them back somehow, most times without him returning them. He doesn't need to get ready here today, but it'll give him an excuse to lounge around the apartment for the rest of the day since it's Maya's day off. That's his plan when he leaves the bathroom to return to the living area.

All thoughts of showers or anything else are reduced to trivialities when Lucas comes back to the couch and Maya is already at her easel, all her attention on her canvas, pallet and brush. This is his favorite part of staying at her apartment.

The couch he has claimed as a bed on several occasions is actually one boundary to Maya's workspace. Since she shares a room with Riley, there is no room in there for her to work, so she set up her space in one corner of the living area. It's actually to her advantage as it's the portion of the apartment with the best natural lighting and room to move about in as she paints. There is zero privacy, but Maya has grown out of being shy about people seeing her unfinished pieces—and anything she wants for her eyes only gets completed at the campus studio anyway. Still, there is something intimate about spending so much time in someone's creative space, almost like reading someone's diary and figuring out they're not quite what you expected after all. It offers him a glimpse into her. She blossoms in front of him and he loves seeing this side of her first hand and up close.

Lucas learns to trace Maya's moods by how and what she's painting. She soaks a canvas with vibrant pinks and yellows and warm colors when she's happy. It's blues, grays and blacks when she's sad. She swishes sloppy strokes when she's bored or uninspired. She hits the canvas with hard, harsh violent strokes when she's angry, giving everything a chaotic, blurry tilt. Lucas once woke up from a nap on her couch because and uncouth comment from a classmate about one of her pieces sent her into a furious rhythm that splattered paint everywhere and he caught some in the face. Those times, it's easy to tell how she's feeling with one glance because it's written all over her canvas as plain as if it were scribbled out in sharpie.

But sometimes he can't figure out what she's feeling with one look. Today is one of those days.

Lucas is careful not to disturb her as he slowly sinks down onto the couch. He watches her work in silence while he tries to figure out what's going on in her head. He can't tell if she's feeling good or not, her current piece is a wash of contrast, warm and cold. The only thing he can gather from this is that she's as conflicted as her painting. Maybe that's why he can't figure out what she's feeling, because she's as confused as he is. He wants to ask her straight out, "What are you thinking right now?" But he knows that if he draws her out, breaks her focus, she'll never get back to wherever she is now the same way. She'll lose whatever spark inspired her to pick up the brush today, and he kind of hates himself when he lets that happen. So, he's content to watch her painting evolve without knowing.

It's a remarkable experience in itself. Lucas can watch her paint for hours, especially when she's happy, but even when she's sad or angry, because she always comes out of it with this glow of accomplishment that shows in the flush in her face and the lightness of her soul. It's like she's laid out all her fears, all the hells she's been through, on the canvas and now she is free of that burden. He likes being around for that last part because those are the moments when she lets him all the way in, when her walls aren't up, when she's unguarded. Like the time she woke him with paint splatter, Maya had finished her massacre of color while he watched, daring that ass of a classmate to say her work lacked passion while having this painting shoved into his face. When she waded back to reality, she almost collapsed with laughter at the first sight of Lucas's face speckled with not one or two, but _three_ different colors. The couch was old and lumpy and already destroyed with misfired paint, but Lucas's face was not supposed to look like a Jackson Pollock. Without a word, not that she could form a coherent sentence through her continued laughter, she left her workspace and returned a minute later, quiet and composed with a wet wash cloth. Before Lucas could say anything, Maya climbed over him, carefully straddling his lap and settled back on his knees. With as clear a focus as when she painted, Maya cleaned his face with soft strokes until there was no trace of her masterpiece left on his skin. Her hands lingered on his cheek and neck even after she was done. He had stayed silent through the whole process, afraid that a single syllable uttered out loud would frighten her away, also she had stunned him into a frozen state where he didn't know what to do with his body or his hands when she was hovering over him too close and yet still not close enough. Her eyes were the brightest he had ever seen them as they stared straight into his. At some point, they had started to breathe in sync and he could feel her chest rise and fall with his. But he didn't take his eyes off of her, even when he finally found use for his hands and let his fingers fall onto her hips and then spread out across her lower back. He thought she might kiss him then, but he never found out where she would have taken things, because Emily came home. The front door slammed closed and Maya scrambled off his lap onto the couch beside him. They have never spoke of that moment, but he carries it with him, always anticipating when or if it might happen again. It hasn't yet, but he holds onto hope.

Maya's brush strokes become smoother, more languid. The rhythm threatens to lull him back to sleep. He's always exhausted after a night on her couch, but he's still better off there than at his dorm where he would be sleep deprived _and_ traumatized. It makes his evenings more enjoyable too. The apartment provides him with a quiet place to study and work on assignments. Even when he goes back to his dorm, he spends most nights squeezed between Maya and Riley on the couch. Riley types away at her laptop, Lucas does his reading, and Maya—being the only one short enough to do so—twists around so her back rests against the couch arm, her feet fall on Lucas's lap and she's comfortable to sketch away in her sketchbook. They'll stay like this until Riley starts to nod off and calls it a night. Then it's just him and Maya again. One night, when he had an essay he had to turn in before midnight, she scribbled rough caricatures of him that filled a whole page of her book. She teased him by decorating the warped portraits of him with ten gallon hats, lassos, sheriff stars, and one was even riding, of course, a sheep. He fought so hard not to laugh that his endeavor to stay stoic took more of his attention than his essay. He woke up the next morning with that page of her sketchbook taped to his chest, signed by the artist. Another night, they stayed up into the early hours of the morning talking about nothing that is important now, but had felt vital at the time. This is normal for them. The only person who finds the arrangement strange is Emily, but she's only known them for a number of months. She hasn't seen how their relationships grew into this. She doesn't understand, but she doesn't need to, because they do.

Lucas will take sluggish days when he can barely keep his eyes open, he'll take the sore muscles in his back, shoulders, neck and the rest of his body, he'll take it all if it gets him the time to watch her paint and to spend with her late into the night as they try to wind down. If he takes the time to analyze the situation, he'll find that there's not much he wouldn't do to have Maya. He tries not to analyze it though. It's better if he leaves it up in the air until she chooses to define it. He's well aware that she holds his entire world between her fingertips and she has the power to bring it to life or crush it to pieces. He has no intention to tip the scales in either direction. The limbo he dwells within in the meantime isn't so bad—it has almost all the perks of heaven, with very few tortures of hell.

Maya is getting more confident with her movements. She knows where she's taking this painting, even if he can't see it yet. He still can't decipher what feelings she's putting into it yet—and it's getting harder to because his eyelids have started to droop and all he can make out are vague shapes and a blur of colorful strokes. The last thing he remembers being sure of before he falls asleep is that the warmer and brighter colors are slowly weaving their way into prominence. Maybe that's why he has pleasant dreams.

When he wakes up this time, it's not because there is a conversation going on, literally, above his head. It's because his temperature is all wrong. It's like someone cranked up the heat because one side of him is several degrees warmer than the rest of him. It feels like someone piled clothes fresh out of the dryer on top of him. With his brain still foggy, that's the only explanation he can put together before he gets his eyes open. Once he blinks them open and looks down, he gets a face full of blonde curls. It take shim a second to realize that he's not still dreaming, that Maya is in fact curled against his side and has the blanket pulled over both of them. From the slow and steady pattern of her breathing, he can tell that she's asleep even though her face is pressed to his chest where he can't get a good look at it. He couldn't have been asleep for too long—it's still daylight and the wall clock assures him that he still has hours before his evening class—but it was long enough for Maya to finish her painting and to decide to take a nap half on top of his already sleeping form. She must have been as exhausted as he was, or worn out by how much of herself she put into her work. Either way, he's going to let her sleep, even if she's wrapped around him, pressing his arm into his body between them to the point that it was on its way to falling asleep itself. He tries to remain perfectly still, even as he takes his first look at her painting. Once he does, he can't help but move.

Lucas tilts his head and lifts the hand not trapped by Maya. He stretches his arm out so his hand is spread between him and the painting. He narrows his eyes to a squint and moves his hand to get a look from different angles. His heart starts to pound as he realizes that he is seeing exactly what he thinks he's seeing. That it's real. It's not a dream or a wish or a fantasy. It's there and it's tangible, and _it's real_.

The painting is of his hand, _his_ hand, the one hanging in the air between him and the painting, and it's curled around another smaller hand. He doesn't have to look down at the tiny palm laid flat on his chest to know who that other hand belongs to. It's a snapshot, a memory of him holding her hand, perhaps from that morning when his hand closed around hers to pull her into him. Their hands stand clear and bold in the foreground, while the background is the crazy spectrum of color that he remembers from before he dozed off. He knows it means something that the vivid colors surrounding their clasped hands are her joyful yellows and pinks and that all those warm colors are crowding out the blues and grays that fade into the corners. She clearly spent quite some time layering colors over each other, trying to figure out what she felt, and he likes what she settled upon. Maybe he's not the only one who carries that missed moment around with him.

All of his movement has caused Maya to stir. She slowly lifts her head and looks up at him. She blinks a few times and offers him a dazed smile. She sits up enough for him to get his arm free and he wraps it around her as she settles down against him again. She keeps her gaze on his the whole time.

"Hello, sleepyhead," Lucas says. "How long have you been there?"

"Not too long," Maya's next breath morphs into a yawn. "Since I finished. You looked so content, peacefully snoozing away. I thought I'd join you."

"I'm sorry I woke you," Lucas says.

Maya shrugs and snuggles closer to him, folding her arms and legs around him. "It's okay, just don't make me move yet."

"You can stay there as long as you want," Lucas pulls the blanket up a little further, tucking it in around them.

"You're a sweetheart," Maya mumbles into his shirt.

Lucas smiles. "Are you going back to sleep?"

"No," Maya says with a sigh. "I'm just keeping myself warm."

"Alright."

"Yep," Maya says, curling her fingers into his shirt. "If you're going to sleep on my couch, I reserve the right to use you as a space heater."

"It's so like you to use a guy for his body...heat," Lucas's voice wavers as her fingers crawl up to his neck.

Maya snickers and sweeps her thumb over the spot where his pulse thrums beneath his skin. "You know you like it."

"I didn't say I was complaining."

"Oh, no, of course not," Maya says. "You never complain, even when you should. It's not in your nature, Huckleberry."

Her hand plays with the collar of his shirt and the ghosting of her fingertips on the fabric and how they dip into his skin beneath it, does strange things to him. He reaches up and covers her hand with his to still her movements, if only so he can keep himself composed. At his touch, she gasps, low in the back of her throat, and her whole body goes completely still. She's frozen and staring at their joined hands. He may have shattered the moment, but it's better if he has. Anymore of her gentle touch and he might have ruined it all in a more potentially disastrous manner.

His mouth has gone dry and he licks his lips as he tries to say something, but she beats him to it.

"Have you looked at it, really looked at it?" Maya asks, her voice only carrying enough for him to hear.

"Yes," Lucas answers. He's looking at it now, letting his eyes travel over the brush strokes, because if he looks at their pair of hands entwined in real life, it might break him.

"So you see it?" Maya says.

Lucas swallows, "Yes."

"The way I do?"

"How do you see it?" Lucas thinks he knows the answer already, at least he hope it's the answer he has in his head, because he desperately wants to tell her yes. He wants to tell her he sees it exactly how she does, but she has to say it first. "Tell me."

Maya hesitates and he wants to fill in the words for her, but he knows he can't. She has to say it herself. Because memorizing her brush strokes and finding her secrets between them is good enough when it's just for him to lock away in the back of his mind, but it's not enough if they want to drag this out into the open, if they want to take it anywhere. She has to say it out loud, so he can know for sure that he's not alone in this thing that he feels. This is the only thing he can't do for her. She has to take that step herself.

"You know as well as anyone, that my life has been a constant struggle—a struggle with hopelessness, a struggle with fear, a struggle to be better, to rise above," Maya finally says, leaning up just enough to meet his eyes. "It's never been easy for me and I've never had a problem with that. It's how I've learned to bring out the best of myself. And then you come along, and you make my life harder and easier at the same time. You confuse the hell out of me. I can't escape you, I damn sure can't break you hard as I might try, and trying to figure you out is more trouble than it's worth. But sometimes, you get trapped up in my head, and _that's_ what comes of it."

"I think it's beautiful," Lucas says.

"You know what? _It is_ ," Maya replies. "Because what you do for me is beautiful. All that gray, all that darkness, all that struggle that was and is my life, you push it away, you make it fade, you shove it aside, into the corners, out of sight—with the simple touch of your hand."

Lucas wants to tell her that she does the same for him. That everything that is good in his life is brighter, and all the bad goes away, when he can sit with her on this couch. But she's not finished yet and he's not going to stop her now that she's finally opening herself up completely.

"It makes me wonder: if you can do that with just a touch, then what could you do if I let you do more?" Maya says.

She slips her hand out from under his, but only to cover his with hers. She picks up his hand and moves it so that it lays against her neck. It places his fingertips over her pulse point in a similar position to where her hand had been on his neck moments before. Leaving his hand on her, she runs her own back up his chest and settles it at his jawline. She spreads her fingers so that her thumb strokes his cheek and the rest brush across his neck. For a moment, Lucas can't remember how to breathe. All the air gets trapped in his lungs in anticipation of what she's going to do next. He searches her eyes as she inches closer to him. He can feel her breath on his lips and he can feel all the pieces falling into place. They're a second away from something they've been dancing toward for years. Nothing is going to stop it from happening.

Except, a second is just enough time for two different doors to open at the same time. Riley is on her way in, home for the evening after her classes, and Emily is on her way out to her evening work shift. The arrival of both of her roommates at once spooks Maya. She is instantly skittish, backing up and slipping through his fingers again. He's seeing her painting in reverse. Instead of the good feelings banishing the bad, it's the opposite. It's all that gray, all that blue, all that darkness creeping in from the corners, letting out their strangling and suffocating tendrils, and threatening to fill in everything. He wants to give her the time to do this on her own terms, because if he pushes her too hard, she'll run away faster than she is now. But he can't do this again. He can't let her go and pretend for months that this isn't something, that they didn't get one foot out onto that ledge, dangling and ready to fall, only to be yanked back out of reach of that precipice. He can't pretend that he doesn't see through her, that he doesn't know every inch of her, inside and out, and what she can create when she lets all of that spill out on a canvas. He can't pretend that he doesn't live for this. He can't pretend that he wouldn't be exactly where he is, right now, even if his roommate wasn't awful. It might be crazy and stupid, but this is their moment. He's not waiting or pretending anymore. She's not getting away this time.

Before Maya can scramble away, Lucas grabs her hand and tugs her back to his side. She falls against him and he wraps an arm firmly around her to hold her in place. She opens her mouth, to argue he assumes, but he doesn't let her get a word out. He just dips his head and kisses her parted lips. She whimpers into his mouth as she kisses him back. Both of her hands slide into his hair on both sides of his head. She rocks up into him and he uses his hold on her to help her slid all the way onto his lap. She settles over him with a sigh. There are vivid colors bursting behind his eyelids and he welcomes the sensation. He doesn't know how he went so long without kissing her before this. He doesn't know if he'll be able to go a single second without wanting to kiss her. He isn't complaining though, it's not in his nature.

Behind them, Riley and Emily meet in the middle, stopping to take a look at what's happening on the couch. Riley tilts her head as she watches them. Apparently, all it takes is a kiss for them to forget they have an audience.

"Well, he's not homeless," Emily says. He face crinkles as she looks too long at the scene. She blinks and turns to Riley instead.

"How do you figure that from _that_?" Riley waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the couch.

"Because he definitely lives here now," Emily says. At the eyebrow Riley raises, she adds, "Come on, it was only a matter of time. You've seen how Maya is around him lately. They were doomed. _We_ were doomed."

"Yeah, I know," Riley says. She pouts and props her hands on her hips. "But I had next month in the pool."

"Right," Emily shakes her head with a short laugh before she continues toward the front door. "Congratulate your friend Farkle for me. I've got to get to work, and start a search for a new place."

Riley rolls her eyes, but glances toward Maya and Lucas still making out on the couch and, before she goes to her room, calls out halfheartedly, "Take me with you."

This time the sound of two doors slamming closed does nothing to disturb Lucas or Maya. Now that they've finally bridged that gap, the building could come down around them and they wouldn't notice. Nothing is going to stop them or hold them back, except maybe the need to breathe and eat and sleep. Lucas never gets that shower, or makes it to that class, but it's worth it. When they wake up the next morning, twisted around each other on the couch with the blanket draped around them, they are both cramped and worn out, but they have matching smiles on their faces. Eventually they're going to have to talk about where they go next with words—not touches, or kisses or inspired paintings—but until then they are content to let the warm feelings of being together layer themselves over everything else until they're all they feel, _finally_.

-fin-


End file.
